Science and Human Behavior

Skinner situates the government as one of several organized agencies that exercise control more systematically than the group as a whole. Whereas groups operate through diffuse reinforcement and punishment, agencies such as government, religion, psychotherapy, economics, and education employ specific techniques and structured power. The advantage of a behavioral analysis, he argues, is that it can apply across these diverse domains, offering a unified account of human behavior rather than compartmentalized models like “economic man” or “political animal.”

Government is defined directly as the “use of the power to punish” (336). Regardless of source, governmental control operates primarily through distinguishing legal and illegal behavior. Punishments range from dispossession, fines, and incarceration to more direct aversive measures such as physical harm, ridicule, or public labor. These punishments work not by weakening the behavior but by producing conditioned aversive stimuli. Governments also cultivate obedience, often through verbal commands that both specify behavior and generate aversive pressure to comply. This repertoire, seen most explicitly in military training, is extended to civilian life in practices such as obeying traffic signals.

Law is the codification of governmental practices. It specifies behavior and attaches consequences, typically punishment. Laws stabilize governmental practices by linking behavior to consequence, but they rarely condition people directly.